Graves of Sand and Stone
by Caslia
Summary: Obiwan travels to Tatooine to hand little Luke over to the Lars and makes a special journey to Shmi's grave that reveals a long kept secret.


Disclaimer: You can sue if you want, but I can't promise I've got anything you might want.

This idea came to me after reading Star Wars: Tatooine Ghost by Troy Denning, in which Leia is on a mission for the New Republic and goes to Tatooine to retrieve an art piece that wasn't destroyed with her home world. While she's there, she gains insight into the life of her father and grandmother as slaves, as free beings, and as pawns of destiny. She also learns to see her father's human side.

In one chapter she thinks of Obi-wan and wonders at the life he lived as a hermit, and imagined how he blamed himself every day for the monster that his apprentice became. I thought about writing a short piece on that as well, but in the end changed my mind as it would be similar to Tatters of Hope

This is something of a companion piece to Tatters, but both can be read separately. Actually, it would probably be best if you did. But they're both around the same time period with Obi-wan reflecting upon the loss of Anakin and the destiny the Force planned for them all.

* * *

The child slept peacefully in his arms.

Obi-wan Kenobi, former general of the Republic and Jedi Master, clutched the sleeping babe in one arm and piloted the rusting landspeeder across the rocks with the other. The speeder swerved and swayed in the hot desert wind as he cut through the canyon, then finally gave up the fight as they roared out into the desolate and seemingly endless desert of Tatooine.

It was blistering hot, as it always was on this water-deprived planet. The twin suns down upon the Jedi and child without mercy.

Wrapped securely in his blanket, little Luke Skywalker murmured and turned to hide his face from the heat into the dark confines of Obi-wan's robe.

"Almost there." Kenobi muttered, calling up the direction of the farmstead on the locator and slightly adjusting course. "We should be there before nightfall, little one."

Despite knowing this was the purpose of their journey, to give the baby Skywalker into the care of the Lars at their moisture farm so that the boy might grow up free of Darkside influence, the thought of relinquishing his protection of the child was a sad one for Kenobi.

In the last few weeks, as the galactic situation had deteriorated, what with the rise of the Sith Emperor and the Jedi Purge that had swept clean the old Order, Obi-wan had known little beyond fear, guilt and despair. Then, in desperation, an angel had appeared and given him the gift of hope and redemption.

Twin children. Both Force-sensitive, and believed to be destined to save the galaxy from the sins of their father.

Anakin.

Obi-wan found his thoughts always returned to his former apprentice and best friend. To the young man he had strived to teach the Jedi way, only to have failed Skywalker and allowed him to fall to his own inner darkness.

It had been a great relief, as well as a crushing defeat, when Skywalker had fallen to what should have been his doom in the lava pits of Mustafar. Kenobi had thought his friend free of both the Darkness and the Sith's taloned reach.

But Fate had a twisted sense of humor.

Anakin Skywalker was reborn from the fire, his body blacked and twisted, like his soul, and sealed within a mask, his body a living machine, so that the former Jedi might fulfill his sworn oaths to the Emperor.

Obi-wan's one, small saving of grace had been his continued protection and care for the Lady Amidala, former queen and senator for the people of Naboo, now widow of Skywalker. And within her womb, Anakin's twin children, Obi-wan's nephew and niece. The hope of an entire galaxy.

Now, cradled within his arms, was the son of Skywalker, baby Luke. And ahead of them, rising on the horizon as they drew near, was the Lars homestead.

Despite the brightness of the late afternoon, the thought of handing over little Luke to his father's stepbrother cast a shadow across Obi-wan's battered heart. In the past weeks, during the journey from Dagobah, the birth planet of the twins, to Tatooine, Luke had been Obi-wan's one companion. The child, young as he was, had kept Obi-wan occupied and entertained, enough that his mind and heart had been given a little time to begin the healing process. Though he knew he would always carry the scars of the past year, the aging Jedi was grateful to the little boy for the comfort they had given each other.

And now, he would lose even that.

Without Luke, safe in the care of the Lars, - hidden on the one planet Vader would never return to - Obi-wan was sentenced to a life of self-exile. One day, many years in the future, when the boy was old enough to train, Obi-wan was to take him under his wing and teach the boy the ways of a Jedi, so that he might bring back the old Order. So that he might wield the Force against the Empire and save the galaxy. So that he might destroy his father.

Despite the heat of the day, Obi-wan shivered. How cruel fate could be to those who deserved better. Anakin, who was capable of so much kindness, should have been allowed to live his life in peace and become the Jedi Master of both his and Obi-wan's dreams. Padme, a woman with so much spirit and generosity, had deserved to live a good life with her love and watch her children grow up. And the twins, so young and innocent of any wrong-doing.

But Obi-wan had learned many years ago, with the death of his beloved master, Qui-gon Jinn, that the good and the noble were meant to suffer under the cruel manipulations of the sinister.

This was what had become of Qui-gon's Chosen One. This is what had become of Obi-wan's greatest pride.

Darth Vader.

As if sensing Kenobi's dark thoughts, the child in his arms squirmed and gave a tiny wail, squeezing his eyes tight against the bright suns.

"There, there, Luke." Obi-wan soothed, "we're here. You're safe now."

Safe? Force, was there any place truly safe in this galaxy for the Skywalker children? If Vader, for even a moment, learned he might be a father, he would search from one corner to the other, every planet, every star, every space station until he had found the babes.

But would he dare return to Tatooine?

Obi-wan didn't think so. With the passing of time since the death of his mother, Anakin had spoken of Tatooine rarely, and usually with a bitterness in his voice. If he ever returned, it would not be to seek out the home his mother had shared with strangers.

In fact, it was far more likely he would discover little Leia in the House of Alderaan, hidden in plain sight. Obi-wan had argued this point with both Master Yoda and the girl's mother, but both had seen it as the right course of action.

Nothing he had said had changed either of their minds. Padme felt if her twins had to be separated from her, they could at least live with families she was sure would properly care for and love them.

Upon seeing the weather-beaten and shadowed face of Owen Lars as he stood, arms crossed, outside of his desert dwelling, watching as Obi-wan pulled up, Kenobi was having some serious second thoughts about the Lars being able to provide love for Luke.

Pulling the speeder to a halt, the two men stared at one another.

"You must be Kenobi." The young man said, his face still as inhospitable as his home planet. "Is that the child?"

"Yes." Obi-wan held Luke closer. "Are you Owen Lars?" Best to be careful. This was a time of great deceit, what with the rise of the Emperor. It would have been exceedingly easy to replace the Lars with an Imperial spy in an attempt to snatch the child. Obi-wan relaxed his grip after reminding himself there was as of yet no reason to believe Vader or Palpatine knew about the twins.

"I am. Give me the boy."

For a moment, Obi-wan resisted, clinging to the child as though it were his own. He didn't want to give Luke up. The boy was all he had left of his best friend. And the care of the child was the first mission he had taken for his own sake, and not another's.

But this was what had to be done. Luke could not stay with him, just as Padme couldn't keep either of her children. The risks were too great.

Obi-wan let the child be taken from him, thinking how similar it was to how he had so easily let Anakin be taken from his grasp. The difference was Luke would be safe. Here, he could grow up, perhaps not as happily as a child should, as content as he would have been with his mother and sister, or be raised as properly as he would have been among the Jedi Order, but rather, anonymous, protected from the Empire.

Owen took the child and for a moment his hard face relaxed into something close to kindness. Looking at him, Kenobi did not think the man would be cold, or even potentially cruel to the boy, but he sensed that a hard life had turned this once shy young man into a bitter farmer in a desperate and lethal landscape. Carefully wrapping the child in his robes, Lars turned away from the speeder and called toward the stead.

"Beru, you can come out. It's the Jedi. He brought the child."

A woman with dark blond hair and a wonderfully inviting smile came running up the stairs from the imbedded house and ran across the dune to where her husband waited. She had the kindness in her that her husband lacked, and a touch of something more.

Maybe it was just a young woman's love for a new child, or maybe it was a weak connection to the Force, Obi-wan wasn't sure.

Beru Lars gave a quiet cry of joy and reached out for Luke, taking him eagerly from her husband's arms and brought the child to her breast. Cooing gently, she rocked the babe, whispering soft nothings to him that made Obi-wan ache for Padme. Though she still had her daughter with her, it hurt him to know she would never get to do this with her son.

"What's his name?" Beru asked softly, brushing the soft blond curls on the baby's head.

For her, Obi-wan smiled despite the pain. "Luke. His name is Luke Skywalker."

"Luke. What a beautiful name. Oh, Owen! He's going to be such a wonderful son, I know he will! He's even named for Tatooine! Son of the Suns! What a miracle! We finally have a child of our own!"

"Yes," Owen replied, eyeing Obi-wan suspiciously and paying no attention to his cooing wife and new child. "A miracle. Tell me, Jedi, how do you expect us to keep this boy? Raise him, care for him, send him to school?"

"All of that will be paid for," Obi-wan explained, handing the farmer a data pad, "His mother has set aside an account for him that you can access as you see fit. But" he warned, "it is only for the boy."

Lars harrumphed, "I would never steal from my own kin, Jedi."

He then willingly accepted the data pad, gave it a once over, then nodded curtly. He was, Obi-wan decided, not a bad man. Perhaps Luke might learn from this man the discipline that had been so lacking in his father. Owen turned and looked over at the baby, as if for the first time seeing the boy. Little Luke stared, wide-eyed, at his new guardian, clearly undecided about all of this.

Poor boy, Obi-wan thought not for the first time.

The Force could be so unfair.

"Thank you, Master Jedi." Beru continued, ignoring her glowering husband. "You don't know how much of a joy this is for us. I've waited so long for a child; we'd almost given up hope. Please, won't you come in and have dinner with us? It's the least we can do – "

"No," Owen stated, without menace but harshly enough to make it clear there was no room for argument. "Surly the Jedi Master has other things to attend to. Leave him be, Beru, and come inside."

"But, Owen!" she objected, looking between the two men. Owen had his back turned, already walking back to the compound. Obi-wan sat in the speeder, silent. He did not want to cause any problems between the two. They might not as willing as they seemed to take in the boy. If they didn't, he didn't know what he might do.

He could hardly raise the child as his own.

"He was a friend of your brother's. Surely, you want to know what happened to Anakin – "

"I know what happened," snapped the younger man, turning to point an accusing finger in Obi-wan's direction. "He chose them over his own family and left his mother to a slave's life! Then he got involved in things he just should have best stayed out of and it got him killed. Skywalker is gone, Beru, and the best we can do for him now is take care of the boy and keep him," he nodded angrily at Kenobi, "away from him."

Oh, no. If Lars was intent on separating him from Luke, which he could very well do, Obi-wan would not have the chance to teach Luke and help him build his connection to the Force. This could cause serious problems.

Best to leave it for now, and hope the boy's uncle changed his mind after a time.

If not, he would simply have to wait till Luke was older and able to come to Obi-wan on his own. Maybe the mystery of what truly became of his parents would draw young Skywalker to the 'hokey' old wizard, Ben Kenobi.

He could only hope.

"Come on, Beru. It's getting dark." Owen turned and headed back toward the compound.

His wife, child in arms, turned back to Obi-wan and smiled sweetly, her eyes apologizing for her husband's unkind words. "We do thank you, Master Jedi. And I swear I'll take good care of Luke. I promise, I will."

Obi-wan smiled for her sake, somehow finding it within him to actually believe her. "I know you will. And I thank you." He hesitated; worried for a moment that Owen might return and order him from their land. But in the end, the need was stronger than the fear. "My lady, would you allow me the-the chance to see Shmi Skywalker's grave? I-I can't help feel I should at least visit her before I leave."

Eyes wide at having been addressed as a lady, Beru could only nod.

Climbing out of the speeder, Obi-wan crossed the sand and headed to where he could see the shapes of four graves sticking out of the dry earth. In the falling darkness, they caught the last of the suns' light, standing like guardians on the edge of the stead. He walked swiftly toward them past the home of the Lars. If Owen Lars glanced up and saw the Jedi, he said nothing about it. Slowing as he neared the little cemetery, Kenobi searched among them for the one he sought.

The first two held names he did not recognize. The last belong to Creigg Lars, Owen's father and Shmi's husband. She lay beside him, nothing now but a stone marker on a sandy plain.

Without knowing he was doing it, Obi-wan slowly knelt and reached out a hand to brush the sand out of where her name was carved into the rock.

What could he say? Where did he start?

Obi-wan had never spoken with the dead before, not even to Qui-gon's spirit after the battle of Naboo. How does one talk to the deceased? For a moment, he smiled, thinking he might introduce himself, but the smile faded and he was left staring, dry-mouthed, at the grave.

"You don't know me, I'm..." he coughed, cleared his throat, a little embarrassed. "I wasn't there that day my master, Qui-gon, came and took your son away. My name is Obi-wan. Obi-wan Kenobi. I was Qui-gon's apprentice at the time. He's dead now. But, I guess you know that."

"Anakin is – was – my apprentice. He was a good boy. I-I loved him, like a brother. But, I don't think I ever told him." Regrets. Why did there have to be so many? "But I did. And I was proud of him. You would have been too."

Who wouldn't have been proud of a boy like Anakin? He had been so quick- witted, so willing to learn. And even though they had had their differences, of which there had been many, they had both been determined to make their relationship last. Anakin had wanted so much to be a Jedi, to help those like his mother, trapped by injustice. And Obi-wan, more for his care for the boy than for any promise made, had wanted him to obtain that goal.

Just where they had gone wrong, he wasn't sure. Only that that dream had vanished and somehow, by some strange twist of fate, or the Force, their bond had decayed, crumbled. Broken them apart and cast them to different sides of a war in which neither had any place.

And then, he had lost him. Anakin, lost, to the Darkness.

Where there had been no tears before, now there was. He clung to them, fighting to not them fall. He had to remain strong.

"He spoke of you often, you know." He managed. "And it was always with such love. I was wrong to discourage it, telling him to focus more on his studies."

"He used to say sometimes, and more and more often throughout these past years," years in which everything had collapsed, when everything held dear was lost or destroyed, "that I was jealous of him. That I envied him his power in the Force. And maybe, in some ways, I did."

The grave stone sat, unjudgmental.

"There was something I envied Anakin for, because as hard as it was for him to have been separated from you, at least he had memories. At least he knew what it was like to have a family. Before he came along, I never wondered. I always saw the Order as my family and I was content with that."

"But he would talk about you, about how, at night, you would come and tuck him in. About how even though you were so desperately poor, you would save and get him something special every now and then, for no reason at all! And how whenever he needed someone, you were there. I tired. Oh, Force, did I try! But as much as Masters are like parents to their padawans, I could not replace you. I could not be more or even as important to him as you were."

"I think every morning, he woke, hoping to hear the sound of your voice in the next room."

"He used to tell me stories. Once, I was wounded during a mission and Anakin came to see me in the med center. I have to admit," he forced out a small laugh, remembering, "I was in pretty bad shape. And he sat down next to my bed, just watching me for a time."

"The nurses said he should talk to me, give me something to think about besides the pain. So you know what he did? He told me stories about you, about living on Tatooine as a slave. And they weren't always happy stories, most of the time there was a lot of pain there. About being a slave, about being a boy growing up with few real friends. There were the dangers of the desert, of the streets. He used to have nightmares of trying to run away and being killed. Or being sold and being forced to leave."

"But through it all, you were there. You comforted him, talked with him, shared what little you could and taught him to be brave. You were everything to him, everything that was ever important."

"And somewhere, amid the pain of my wounds and the bright love in his voice for a mother he had not seen in some ten years, Anakin made me wonder about my own mother."

"Who was she? What did she look like? Where was she from? Did she know my father, or like so many in this galaxy, was she a victim of some injustice? And had she given me up freely to the Jedi, or had they come looking and found me, taken me away? I don't remember. I wished that I could. But I don't."

And that was the truth, as much as he knew. Nothing more. He had no real knowledge of his past, of who his parents had been or anything about his homeplanet, didn't even know where it was.

He was as orphaned as Luke, except for the Jedi.

Now, he didn't even have that.

"And then," he whispered, pain gripping his heart. "And then you died. Anakin never told me much about what happened, only that it was slow, and painful. I did what I could for him, held him as he cried. But that wasn't enough. I know it wasn't. I could never comfort him as you did."

"And I couldn't, even if I had been able to. Because after he left with Padme, I had to turn my face to the wall and cry." And he did so now, silently, his tears dropping to the sand. The thirsty earth drank them in immediately and they were gone moments after hitting the dirt.

In the fading light of the twin suns, Obi-wan reached out and ran a hand over the stone, struggling not to let a sob escape.

"You were my mother too."

In a way, it was true. From all those stories Anakin had ever told him, he had found a place within his heart for the courageous and loving Shmi. Anakin's mother had unknowingly touched him, and the boy inside of him who had grown up wondering, always wondering. She had quietly cradled him through the words of her son, as he lay in pain in that med center. She had been one of the last lingering lights in Anakin as the years past and slowly the Darkness crept into his friend without either of them knowing.

And now, Anakin was gone.

Shmi's death had been a hard one for the boy, like Qui-gon's had been for a young Kenobi. Master Jinn had been his teacher, his father, his friend. And Shmi had filled in that last part of his wondering soul; it had been her face that had replaced the empty picture of his mother he carried around in his heart.

And he had failed her.

"Forgive me," he whispered, shocked by how much he felt like he had let her down, a woman he had never known and yet felt so close to. "I'm so sorry, Shmi, so very, very sorry."

If the kind woman forgave him for her son's fall, for the killing of so precious and simple a dream, the grave didn't tell him so. Nothing changed. Only the wind blew, no voice spoke, no touch in the Force.

Gripping the sand beside him, forcing back the rest of the tears, Obi-wan took a deep, shuddering breath and stood.

"But I swear to you, to you and to Qui-gon and to everyone else who had such faith in Anakin and who I let down. I swear, I will protect his son. I will protect Anakin's child. Luke will never follow in his father's footsteps, so long as I live and breathe. Even if it means never leaving this planet, doing nothing more than sitting and waiting for the day Luke is ready, the son of Skywalker will never fall to the Darkside."

He let the sand fall from his fingers; let the winds blow it away.

Then he gave a whispered goodbye and turned and walked slowly away. The graves stood still, watching his retreat, silent as stone. And if there was a flicker about them, just for an instant, no one was there to see it.

Obi-wan passed the Lars' house without looking. Beru stood on the edge of the steps, watching him with babe in arms. Luke cooed, reached out for Obi- wan as if he knew the Jedi was still there. But Beru wrapped the blanket around the boy and turned away, walking quietly down the steps. Luke yawned and closed his eyes. His new mother kissed him gently and went inside.

After leaving the homestead, Obi-wan sped silently over the sandy dunes, heading for the Jundland Wastes. There, on the edge of such treacherous landscape, he would make himself a home. A hermitage, where he would spend his days, waiting for the day young Luke Skywalker could come seeking him out.

He knew it would happen eventually. It was just a matter of time.

Reaching the desert flats, Obi-wan narrowed his eyes and scanned the horizon. It was bleak, as bleak as the years that would silently pass him by, taking from him his youth, his friends and all that remained of the galaxy he had once known.

Gunning the engine, a final salute to a dear, lost friend, Obi-wan roared across the desert and thought despairingly of Anakin.

* * *

The End

Hope you liked! Thanks for reading! :D

Caslia


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